Int’l Conclave on Justice and Accountability for Rohingya

News Desk 8 October 2019, Tue Published: 08:28

Experts from home and abroad will meet at an international conclave on Rohingya crisis to be held in The Hague, Netherlands on October 18 to bring focus to the issue of “justice and accountability” for Rohingyas.

The Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ) of Brac University, Asia Justice Coalition, and the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam will organise the event.

Since 2017, Bangladesh has been hosting over a million Rohingyas. This is in addition to hosting an already large Rohingya community that has crossed over for decades, resulting in Bangladesh accommodating 4.7 percent of total global refugee population.

The crimes committed in Myanmar against Rohingyas have triggered a number of accountability initiatives, including a case before the International Criminal Court on forced deportation as a crime against humanity, said the organisers.

The aim of the conclave is to bring justice and accountability to the centre of the Rohingya crisis.

There will be three main themes of the international conclave - atrocity, accountability and justice, according to organizers.

A wave of violence and the subsequent displacement of 83,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine State in October 2016 foreshadowed the atrocities that escalated in 2017, when over 700,000 more people were displaced.

While the overwhelming scale and severity of violence suffered by the Rohingya people has led to increased global recognition of the need for an international justice process, the Rohingya issue does not exist in isolation, organizers said.

International consensus is growing that accountability will be an important component of the path forward, according to the organisers.

The panel will examine the role of international justice as a central component of a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis.

Panelists will offer an overview of the current efforts underway to hold perpetrators accountable for atrocities against the Rohingya as well as other ethnic minority groups in Myanmar. Source: UNB